It's an emotional debate raging among those who live on and use the lake.

Let the lake go up and down more, say environmentalists and outdoors sportsman. The current levels have made the lake's 63,000 acres of surrounding wetlands unhealthy; wildlife, native plants and fish are suffering, they say. They favor a new plan being considered by a joint American/Canadian commission to let the lake rise and fall more.

View full sizeTwo Nature Conservancy interns attempt to navigate through a wetland at NYS DEC's Lakeview Wildlife Management Area along the Lake Ontario shoreline. This wetland system, like others along Lake Ontario, is now dominated by cattails due to stabilization of water levels under the current water level regulation plan for Lake Ontario.Courtesy of the Nature Conservancy

Keep the lake stable, say fearful shoreline property owners, municipalities and some businesses. They scoff at the idea of putting "muskrats and cattails above property values." The new plan could result in unacceptable extremes, they say, including erosion from high water or dried-up dock slips and shorelines.

Decision time is near. A commission of American and Canadian officials could rule early next year.

"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore the health of a great lake. It's in everyone's best interest to have a healthy lake," said Jim Howe, executive director of the Central and Western New York chapters of the Nature Conservancy.

Jack Steinkamp, of Sodus, founder of LORA (Lake Ontario Riparian Alliance), a citizen's group opposed to the plan, is quick to note many have "no clue what an extra foot or lack of a foot means to the people living along the lake's shore or doing business in its marinas or harbors."

View full sizeJack Steinkamp poses with one of his black labs at his Sodus Point property. Steinkamp founded the Lake Ontario Riparian Alliance, which is opposed to Plan 2014.
Stephen D. Cannerelli | scannerelli@syracuse.comStephen D. Cannerelli \ scannerelli@syracuse.com

The debate concerns Plan 2014, which is currently before the International Joint Commission, a panel composed of representatives from the U.S. and Canada whose mission is to prevent and resolve conflicts over the shared use of waters on the countries' borders.

A six-year study on the lake's water level began in 2000 and ended in 2006. The study included more than 200 experts from both sides of the border and cost some $20 million, said Frank Bevacqua, a spokesman for the International Joint Commission.

Several proposals were forwarded, none were accepted. Plan 2014 was released this May. It added two inches to the upper range of what's occurring now, and an extra eight inches to the lower range, Bevacqua said.

In addition, the most current plan includes "triggers" that allow the IJC to take emergency action during high water or low water conditions. These were put in place to allay the concerns of shoreline property owners, Bevacqua said.

The environmentalists, bolstered by support from outdoor sportsmen, say the critics exaggerate the negatives, noting Plan 2014 is long-over due and needed. They concede there should be more financial aid and help available to those individual property owners, businesses and communities affected, but that Plan 2014 needs to be approved first.

When the lake's current water plan was put in effect back in the late 1950s, officials had no idea what its ecological impact would be, Howe said. Over the years, the absence of variable highs and lows ended up killing off certain native plant species in the wetlands, resulting in congested "cornfields" of cattails with little or no open water. Wildlife such as ducks, black terns and muskrats have decreased, and northern pike spawning areas have been disappearing. Read more about this.

A series of hearings and a public comment period for the plan started July 1 and ended Aug. 31. The commission is expected to reach its decision sometime in early 2014, at which time the plan will be handed over to the U.S. State Department and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs.

New York State and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have stayed clear on the fray and not taken a stance on Plan 2014. The Canadian providence of Ontario has voiced its approval, but Quebec has remained mum at this point, Bevacqua said.

The U.S. and Canadian utility interests, which include the New York Power Authority on the American side, would see a total projected $5.26 million in increased profits, according to the plan's economic impact study. They have not taken a position on Plan 2014.

The Canadians for the most part are in favor of the plan, Bevacqua said, and would face fewer negative impacts. There's geological and wind direction differences for the shoreline on the Canadian side, in addition to more land use planning in place on the northern shore, he said.

Steinkamp said he can't foresee a plan that would work better than the current one, and said that maybe a different tact should be taken. Instead of working to get money for property owners affected, maybe the cash should just be handed over to the environmentalists to fix the ecological problems, he said.

Howe said that doesn't work. It's a natural process and there's no easy, inexpensive way to replicate the process. It's been estimated that it would cost some $17 million to dig out and fix the wetlands around the lake "but that's not sustainable. The processes that would keep them fixed are missing."

Bevacqua said it's highly unlikely to get a plan that everyone will agree upon.

"My interpretation is that some just aren't willing to give up on any protection they have now," he said.